Took our first real off road drive in our stock GX550 Overtrail on Monday.
We have been on a cross country trip since Jan 13 and have landed In care free AZ where we are based out of for 2 months before heading back east. Using onX maps we decided to go up the gateway to seven springs trail, then take the new river trail to highway 17.
The GX has been a great cross country vehicle with the exception of the known lack of storage and short fuel range.
We have driven a bunch of dirt roads on the trip and the Lexus does Just fine. Tis trail was very mild and well graded for the first half of the drive.
Half way through new river trail it got much more challenging.
I have had a built jeep and belonged to a club so I have traversed much worse, but this was a bigger, heavier, 80K vehicle with 7k miles on it.
The Gx performs better than I expected. Traction was never an issue. The camera really helps place tires on rocks without the need for a spotter. The crawl control is nice over the rock gardens to keep the bouncing around minimized ( though I do not trust it enough for obstacles.
Flex for an independent front suspension was pretty darn good. It must have some front weight bias as it would always lift a back tire, and with the rear axle locked this was always uneventful. This trail did have some good sized rocks and they found all the low spots on the truck. the factory skid took the biggest beating, with some deforming. the front lower control arms hang pretty low, but are built stout enough to be scratched up with no dents. both mufflers are dimpled. You could hear the mufflers ring when they took a hit. back tire is scraped and i can see it getting wrecked if you would come down on it too hard. the running boards took some damage, which is fine as i was trying to get rock sliders put on before the trip but they didn't arrive (different story). In fact most of the stress was tryin not to slide into a rock and damage the doors on this trail. Overall I am very pleased with the trucks abilities considering what we put it through. I will be adding some armor when we get back, and do some easier trails while on this trip.
The trail was rated a 4 on the onX app but it has some spots that are a bit tougher than that. I took us 6 1/2 hours round trip from carefree. we got to pavement right at sunset ( whew!) Fun Day! Challenging trails. Great rig. Got a good feel for driving the thing. My only dislikes were the rocks over 12" around.
We have been on a cross country trip since Jan 13 and have landed In care free AZ where we are based out of for 2 months before heading back east. Using onX maps we decided to go up the gateway to seven springs trail, then take the new river trail to highway 17.
The GX has been a great cross country vehicle with the exception of the known lack of storage and short fuel range.
We have driven a bunch of dirt roads on the trip and the Lexus does Just fine. Tis trail was very mild and well graded for the first half of the drive.
Half way through new river trail it got much more challenging.
I have had a built jeep and belonged to a club so I have traversed much worse, but this was a bigger, heavier, 80K vehicle with 7k miles on it.
The Gx performs better than I expected. Traction was never an issue. The camera really helps place tires on rocks without the need for a spotter. The crawl control is nice over the rock gardens to keep the bouncing around minimized ( though I do not trust it enough for obstacles.
Flex for an independent front suspension was pretty darn good. It must have some front weight bias as it would always lift a back tire, and with the rear axle locked this was always uneventful. This trail did have some good sized rocks and they found all the low spots on the truck. the factory skid took the biggest beating, with some deforming. the front lower control arms hang pretty low, but are built stout enough to be scratched up with no dents. both mufflers are dimpled. You could hear the mufflers ring when they took a hit. back tire is scraped and i can see it getting wrecked if you would come down on it too hard. the running boards took some damage, which is fine as i was trying to get rock sliders put on before the trip but they didn't arrive (different story). In fact most of the stress was tryin not to slide into a rock and damage the doors on this trail. Overall I am very pleased with the trucks abilities considering what we put it through. I will be adding some armor when we get back, and do some easier trails while on this trip.
The trail was rated a 4 on the onX app but it has some spots that are a bit tougher than that. I took us 6 1/2 hours round trip from carefree. we got to pavement right at sunset ( whew!) Fun Day! Challenging trails. Great rig. Got a good feel for driving the thing. My only dislikes were the rocks over 12" around.
